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05/06/10(Thu)05:12:14 No.8782855@Roman
Steel and Armor:
Maybe, but if they did they weren't making armor
out of it. We have the remains of a half-dozen suits of lorica
segmentata, all of which are constructed with iron bands. To propose
that iron, banded armor would reliably stop steel-tipped arrows fired
from Mongol composite bows is pretty far fetched, and I wouldn't put its
odds very high against even the cheaper iron-tipped arrows.
The
other big (actually, the biggest) Roman armor was, indeed, chain. Chain
performs very poorly against arrows, however, and was historically
replaced by plate as the latter became more precisely engineered. Chain
is not very useful against arrow strikes because the force is
concentrated on the few links an arrowhead hits--- which, really, isn't
very much metal to punch through, or links to force open.
The
following video is hardly scientific or historical, but it illustrates
the point. Note that Roman lorica hamata was an iron, riveted, 4-in-1
weave -- actually a much weaker armor than that is depicted here (and
Mongol bows would be a heavier draw than what is shown here):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeVThIMJ1H8
Roman
shields, made primarily of wood, would likely not be penetrated
entirely but would catch the arrow after significant penetration
(greater than a foot). This means that the shield will eventually split,
or the bearer's arm will be punctured.
@Arrow balistics and
plunging fire:
>Longer flight path downward
=> more time to accelerate => dramatically increased kinetical
energy.
In a perfect vacuum the arrow will loose precisely
as much momentum reaching the highest point in its ballistic trajectory
as it would gain descending. In the real world, it loses momentum to
wind resistance the entire way. High-angle plunging fire was used to get
more range out of an arrow volley, and to fire over friendly
formations, not to add to the volley's penetrating power. |
